So yeah, Fu and I went to Texas this weekend for my brother�s senior homecoming football game. This is his senior year in high school and he is President of the FFA (Future Farmers of America in case you live in some foreign land) and is on the football team. See he lives in a real small town and homecoming is a big deal (as it should be). Just imagine yourself transported back to the innocence of the 50�s, when kids were still interested in living their lives in the moment and not so hung up on aiming everything they do toward their future adult life (as I had to do). Sometimes I am really jealous of Matt and how much he is enjoying high school. Because man, let me tell ya, I hated it! It sucked out loud!! I mean maybe it was because my life was a wreck at the time, but mostly it was probably because I just felt too much damned pressure to succeed and get into a good college, and yadda yadda yadda!!!

Anyway, we had a most excellent time. The whole town turned out as well as tons of alumni. Matt and the rest of the FFA served lunch the next day to all the alumni members and there was even one lady there that graduated in 1924! Yep, you heard me right, 1924, now let�s see that would make her, what?, 96 years old and she was still coming home for her high school homecoming weekend. Now you know that is cool! Don�t try to be all callus and aloof. There is something about that piece of information that makes you want to grow up in a small town in Texas. No? You still refuse to admit that that kind of life interests you? Well then listen to this � how would you like to be known everywhere you go. Where you could walk into a beauty parlor or pull up to the local malt shop and have them great you by name and know immediately that you want a cherry coke without even being asked. Where you could drive down the main street (that only has a flashing yellow light) and have a fireman wave at you as you pass the Volunteer Fire Station because you worked on their farmland over the summer. Or to be known by name by all your teachers and most everyone in town. To be able to walk into the lone gas station and even have the owner know that you were about to buy a Dr. Pepper and beef jerky because that is what you buy everyday after school.

Still doesn�t sound appealing to you? Well it does to me and I sure wish that I could have had all that when I was growing up. I admit it, I am jealous of my brother and my nephew because they don�t have to grow up quite as fast as I did � they live in a town that is caught in the past and that isn�t always a bad thing.

Stuck in the 50�s tonight,
Squeeky